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Yes, let's antagonize and beatdown nations down on their luck, I'm sure this will end well and everyone involved will have a jolly good time.
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Apr 21, 2020 11:16
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| # ? May 26, 2024 00:35 |
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And it's all about money, which we can literally just print more of with no negative consequences for the foreseeable future. That's not hyperbole or sarcasm. Also, we need a debt jubilee.
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Apr 21, 2020 11:40
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it's not about money, it's about power. and at this point, sadism. edit: I'm wondering if the Chinese government is crunching the numbers to undercut the ESM ?
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Apr 21, 2020 11:57
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mortons stork posted:It's really good that Friedrich Merz, likely substitute to Merkel, was tweeting this poo poo just a couple days ago. Just to ensure that no reprieve will ever be given. Friedrich Merz is one of currently three candidates for head of the CDU, as successor of Annegret Kamp-Karrenbauer. The head of the CDU might be the candidate for Bundeskanzler, although it's actually more likely that the current minister president of Bavaria, Markus Söder will be the CDU/CSU candidate, as he is infinitely more popular. And then the CDU actually has to win the election. Also, Merz is the conservative hardliner in the CDU, so he's not even representative for the CDU, much less for the German government or Germany.
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Apr 21, 2020 12:36
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Missionary Positron posted:https://twitter.com/theEUpost/status/1251064470782304259?s=20 The Chinese and Russian aid was proven to be either faulty or a token effort that barely helps, whereas France and Germany have provided actual relief in PPE and manpower. This whole idea of "Russia and China are the true friends of Italy" is propaganda being repeated by useful idiots and/or bots online. https://formiche.net/2020/03/cina-propaganda-twitter-bot-alkemy/ https://www.lexpress.fr/actualite/s...te_2122604.html https://fr.sputniknews.com/international/202003301043430813-macron-denonce-la-mediatisation-de-laide-russe-envoyee-a-litalie/ (Yeah this website is Russian propaganda but maybe you'll believe France sends aid when you hear it from a biased source)
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Apr 21, 2020 14:23
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The difference is that China isn't saying "you know what? Italy doesn't need money".
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Apr 21, 2020 14:39
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Deltasquid posted:The Chinese and Russian aid was proven to be either faulty or a token effort that barely helps, whereas France and Germany have provided actual relief in PPE and manpower. italians themselves seem to think that the "faulty" or "token" effort from the Russians and Chinese is better than what the Germans or French provided but what do they know
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Apr 21, 2020 14:48
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Yeah we all know it's prop. That will not change its overall effect. And that it's prop doesnt make the bad brussels decisions good.
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Apr 21, 2020 14:51
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Sending relief supplies and then modestly refraining from telling anyone is an excellent way to go to Heaven while completely squandering your much-vaunted soft power.
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Apr 21, 2020 16:07
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Sometimes a timely gesture means more than a thousand big words.
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Apr 21, 2020 16:07
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There's a reason Trump is making sure his name is on every stimulus check. Neoliberals have no idea what 'political capital' actually means.
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Apr 21, 2020 16:21
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NihilCredo posted:Sending relief supplies and then modestly refraining from telling anyone is an excellent way to go to Heaven while completely squandering your much-vaunted soft power. It's the Obama strategem. And we all know what comes after Obama.
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Apr 21, 2020 16:28
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Angry Lobster posted:Sometimes a timely gesture means more than a thousand big words. yes, in fiction
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Apr 21, 2020 17:11
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Doctor Jeep posted:yes, in fiction Not really if the thousand words are "NEIN" and "AUSTERITY".
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Apr 21, 2020 17:13
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Angry Lobster posted:Not really if the thousand words are "NEIN" and "AUSTERITY". lol I misinterpreted your post as a reply to NihilCredo
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Apr 21, 2020 18:21
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Europe had plenty of timely gestures: when Italy suddenly rocketed past China and South Korea as the most affected country in the world, Germany responded by banning exports of masks and test kits. And when they later did send some masks to Italy, it was accompanied by the message "but gently caress you if you expect us to help you save your stupid economy, you irresponsible grasshoppers". They're really ingrate if they start seeing Germany as their enemy and Europe as a brain-dead, dysfunctional mess.
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Apr 21, 2020 18:56
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Clearly what's needed is for the Surrender Monkeys to have a scrap with the Dastardly Hun (who seem genetically predisposed to austerity, definitely 100% of voters there vote for the right you know) like in the olden days. A good clean and proven way to get rid of excess population, they can explain about austerity to the scopes of our rifles. The EU is clearly in the way IMO. A paradise awaits! Dulce et docorum est, pro patria mori! e: Or we could, you know, work together instead. Private Speech fucked around with this message at 19:14 on Apr 21, 2020 |
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Apr 21, 2020 19:09
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Private Speech posted:Clearly what's needed is for the Surrender Monkeys to have a scrap with the Dastardly Hun (who seem genetically predisposed to austerity, definitely 100% of voters there vote for the right you know) like in the olden days. kinda hard to work together when one party is dedicated to draining the others dry out of spite
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Apr 21, 2020 19:15
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Missionary Positron posted:kinda hard to do that when one party is dedicated to draining the others dry out of spite Sounds like a good description of the southern states lavish spending and corruption without any regard for the future (or so someone could say, and would say). These kinds of arguments are fundamentally about politics, not nations. e: Also the united states treats overly indebted states (not bankrupt as bankruptcy is technically not legal, so they just have to cut everything to the bone instead no matter what) even more harshly then the EU, except noone gives a gently caress because they are usually flyover or periphery ones. Or Michigan. Or because the US is garbage. The Case for Allowing U.S. States to Declare Bankruptcy quote:The principle that states are responsible for their own debts goes back to the 1840s, when Congress refused to assume the debts of states that had overborrowed to finance a canal- and railroad-building craze. Chastened by the episode, many states passed balanced-budget amendments and took other steps to keep their debt under strict control. It was a pivotal moment in the history of U.S. federalism, Jonathan Rodden, a political scientist at Stanford and the Hoover Institution, wrote in a 2012 paper. quote:Bankruptcy lets you get ahead of the problem, says David Skeel Jr., a professor at University of Pennsylvania Law School and a leading advocate of giving federal bankruptcy protection to states. Without that option, he says, what inevitably happens when youre in deep financial distress is that you have to cannibalize other stuff. You cut police, schools, other services. You reinforce the downward spiral. Private Speech fucked around with this message at 19:29 on Apr 21, 2020 |
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Apr 21, 2020 19:19
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lol the eu is a terrible framework for working together in the face of a crisis, as demonstrated by it failing spectacularly in that regard at every opportunity
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Apr 21, 2020 19:29
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V. Illych L. posted:lol the eu is a terrible framework for working together in the face of a crisis, as demonstrated by it failing spectacularly in that regard at every opportunity Would you say the US is any better? I imagine if the EU did half of poo poo US does federally there would be riots in the streets. Private Speech fucked around with this message at 19:37 on Apr 21, 2020 |
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Apr 21, 2020 19:33
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You mean like Greece?
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Apr 21, 2020 19:34
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Private Speech posted:Would you say the US is any better? I imagine if the EU did half of poo poo US does federally there would be riots in the streets.
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Apr 21, 2020 19:36
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at this point European countries are better off going at it on their own. Closer political, economical and security relationship with China in particular would benefit them more thna staying in the EU. Throw in cozying up to Russia for cheap natural resources and you're golden. theres really no need anymore for propping up european "integration" or transatlantic partnerships
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Apr 21, 2020 19:39
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Private Speech posted:Would you say the US is any better? I imagine if the EU did half of poo poo US does federally there would be riots in the streets. isn't a united states of europe what you people think is needed to rectify the matter
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Apr 21, 2020 19:40
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A Buttery Pastry posted:The US needs someone like Trump to reach the levels of failure that comes naturally to the EU. Imagine an EU defunding WHO, UNICEF, UNHCR; thrashing climate change efforts, enforcing even more insanely draconian IP measures with an iron fist, instituting insane privatisation policies for utilities and healthcare, engaging and instigating frequent illegal warfare across the world, explicitly guaranteeing the right to torture and execute prisoners for any interested member states, protecting the free expression of nazis, racists and bigots, engaging in heinous espionage schemes, brutally exploiting large parts of the world and putting them in incredible peril on a whim of a handful of officials, forbidding member states from levying any significant taxation and enforcing austerity at the same time, etc, etc. Sure sounds so much better. Bet people ITT would love an EU like that.
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Apr 21, 2020 19:43
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Private Speech posted:Imagine an EU defunding WHO, UNICEF, UNHCR; thrashing climate change efforts, enforcing even more insanely draconian IP measures with an iron fist, instituting insane privatisation policies for utilities and healthcare, engaging and instigating frequent illegal warfare across the world, explicitly guaranteeing the right to torture and execute prisoners for any interested member states, protecting the free expression of nazis, racists and bigots, engaging in heinous espionage schemes, brutally exploiting large parts of the world and putting them in incredible peril on a whim of a handful of officials, forbidding member states from levying any significant taxation and enforcing austerity at the same time, etc, etc. The EU does do like 90% of what you mentioned so uh I dont really understand your point there
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Apr 21, 2020 19:45
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Missionary Positron posted:The EU does do like 90% of what you mentioned so uh I dont really understand your point there I'll give you maybe half to a smaller extent, but the powers and policies designed to crush any independent leftist policies in the member states are on an entirely different level altogether. The US would not ever allow a member state to have taxation and spending policies like, say, Denmark.
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Apr 21, 2020 19:50
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Missionary Positron posted:The EU does do like 90% of what you mentioned so uh I dont really understand your point there There are twelve separate points Private Speech listed, name 10 that the EU does.
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Apr 21, 2020 19:54
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goethe42 posted:There are twelve separate points Private Speech listed, name 10 that the EU does. Some of these could be argued to be semantical, painting too broad a stroke or pedantic, not fair as it's only a few of the member states acting independently, or whatever, but if you really want to... Private Speech posted:Imagine an EU defunding WHO, UNICEF, UNHCR; thrashing climate change efforts, enforcing even more insanely draconian IP measures with an iron fist, instituting insane privatisation policies for utilities and healthcare, engaging Especially that last one feels very much out of touch with reality.
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Apr 21, 2020 20:21
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Private Speech posted:Would you say the US is any better? I imagine if the EU did half of poo poo US does federally there would be riots in the streets. Private Speech posted:Imagine an EU defunding WHO, UNICEF, UNHCR; thrashing climate change efforts, enforcing even more insanely draconian IP measures with an iron fist, instituting insane privatisation policies for utilities and healthcare, engaging and instigating frequent illegal warfare across the world, explicitly guaranteeing the right to torture and execute prisoners for any interested member states, protecting the free expression of nazis, racists and bigots, engaging in heinous espionage schemes, brutally exploiting large parts of the world and putting them in incredible peril on a whim of a handful of officials, forbidding member states from levying any significant taxation and enforcing austerity at the same time, etc, etc. The USA does indeed suck a lot. How are the things you listed related to the federalist framework though? I could see a more centralized or looser US still doing all this
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Apr 21, 2020 20:25
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yikes! posted:The USA does indeed suck a lot. How are the things you listed related to the federalist framework though? I could see a more centralized or looser US still doing all this Well at least with the IP/privatisation/taxation/spending/international politics the looser framework allows member states to have independent policy which isn't completely terrible. At the end of the day I don't think you can say it's better or worse as a framework, since it also allows states to be uniquely terrible even if everyone else wants to be decent. But then again, I don't think even the worst EU states (Poland, Hungary, Denmark, maybe Germany depending) do worse things than the most garbage of US states as things stand right now.
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Apr 21, 2020 22:31
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Where still loving around at the edges, but this is a slight improvement https://twitter.com/m2matthijs/status/1252701844050268162?s=19
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Apr 22, 2020 00:08
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Private Speech posted:e: Or we could, you know, work together instead. "You may say, I am a dreamer..." It doesn't seem to be what's happening. Each time there's a crisis, the half of Europe that's hit less harshly than the rest goes in full FYGM mode while inventing all sorts of vaguely racist reasons for why the others deserved their troubles. Private Speech posted:Would you say the US is any better? I imagine if the EU did half of poo poo US does federally there would be riots in the streets. The US is an actual nation state, not some sort of weird sui generis club of independent nation states. The US have a fiscal union, something that the EU does not have. The US is still, despite the stupefying incompetence of Donald Trump, a great power that the rest of the world, starting with the member states of the EU, are trying frantically to cajole and appease. Private Speech posted:Imagine an EU defunding WHO, UNICEF, UNHCR; thrashing climate change efforts, enforcing even more insanely draconian IP measures with an iron fist, instituting insane privatisation policies for utilities and healthcare, engaging and instigating frequent illegal warfare across the world, explicitly guaranteeing the right to torture and execute prisoners for any interested member states, protecting the free expression of nazis, racists and bigots, engaging in heinous espionage schemes, brutally exploiting large parts of the world and putting them in incredible peril on a whim of a handful of officials, forbidding member states from levying any significant taxation and enforcing austerity at the same time, etc, etc. Thrashing climate change efforts? You've got Germany going all-in on coal because the Grünen say nuclear is bad but not having any problem at all stripmining entire forests to get at some lovely lignite below. Insanely draconian IP measures? The absurdly long copyright terms were from the EU, the Sonny Bonno Act was merely catching up to EU norms. Insane privatization policies? The EU demands train, mail, phone, power, gas, water, etc. to all be privatized so that there can be "competition" (because obviously you're gonna have competing power grids, competing rail tracks, competing water pipes, etc.). Illegal warfare? Look up the "Coalition of the Willing", or the raids in Libya. Protecting the free expression of nazis, racists, and bigots? Austerians are not just protected, they are endorsed and it's their opponents who are made to shut up. (And Austerians are nazis, racists, and bigots, austerity is the mother of all fascism and the source of all FYGMism.) Brutally exploiting large parts of the world? The EU is explicitly a free-market liberal capitalist union, so that one is a given. Forbidding member states from levying taxes while enforcing austerity? Yeah, that one is there too. You can't tax imports from other EU countries, no matter how unbalanced trade is, and you can't raise corporate taxes because corporations will just move to Ireland or the Netherland and tell you to suck it. Large parts of EU regulations are there explicitly to encourage and facilitate tax fraud, tax dodging, and tax evasion.
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Apr 22, 2020 00:10
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Someone link the vat agreements so we can all have a jolly good laugh, after we decode them using the necronomicon.
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Apr 22, 2020 00:24
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Cat Mattress posted:, and you can't raise corporate taxes because corporations will just move to Ireland or the Netherland and tell you to suck it. In before the avalanche of idiots that wil post "but the EU lets you raise those ttaxes, it's not the saaaaaameeee".
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Apr 22, 2020 00:27
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Orange Devil posted:And it's all about money, which we can literally just print more of with no negative consequences for the foreseeable future.
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Apr 22, 2020 09:19
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D. Ebdrup posted:But Any time further than two election cycles is considered very distant future in politics, and thus, irrelevant.
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Apr 22, 2020 09:25
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Two? What kind of mystical forward planning magic land do you hail from friend?
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Apr 22, 2020 09:26
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| # ? May 26, 2024 00:35 |
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I'm an angry optimist.
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Apr 22, 2020 09:33
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